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So lets have a go at this cash game!
Most of you know me as a reasonably successful tournament player on here, but I have never really got to grips with the cash game. After a chat with a few of the guys on another thread I decided to give it a go. Every night after my tournies for the evening I am going to play 3 or 4 tables at 15/30 and see how it goes for an hour or so. I thought I would record my progress on here partly for my own benefit but also for anyone else who is interested enough to comment or advise.
Comments
MASTERCASH 5
Was a nice 6 handed table when I sat down. Stole a few blinds, but after 6 or 7 hands, 3 of the players left. Am I scary or do I smell ? Didnt fancy 3 handed against two capable players so sat out. £1.28 profit
JAWORZNO
Started quite well and soon was a tenner up, but then turned broadway only for a second Jack on the river to give my allin opponent a house. So I was back behind the start line and he ran away! Does this happen often? Luckily his place was taken by a guy who sat in with £7 and decided to get it allin first hand pre with 99 against my pocket kings. Bye !
£5.69 profit
SANDMOOR
This looked the strongest of the three with some good aggressive players so played tight for a while but then found some good spots and built stack nicely. Was about to quit with a healthy profit but picked up AK facing a raise. 3 betted and was called. Flop AQx and facing a strong bet. Dont think my flat call was the right move, but saved by king on the turn. I put him on AQ but he check/folded, so he knew where he was too.
£36.59 profit
So an hours play gave me £43.56 in winnings. I am quite happy with that.
But I have a few questions. Is an hour a long enough session ? Is this a good return at this level ? How should I select which tables to play ? Am I better off playing against people I know, as I have a rough idea of their play, or should I take on a table of unknown quality ?
Tony
This is something I have also been considering, I really enjoy the tournament format and have only casually dabbled in cash.
Ed came out with a golf comparison on a show a few months back which has always stuck in my mind, he was comparing tournaments and cash and said 'drving's for show, putting's for dough', suggesting (I think) that cash games are were most serious players look to make money.
As Dohhhhhhh said £40 an hour is very good and if you made that every hour, I'm sure you could park up the bus for good
It would be interesting to see how your profit levels compare cash v tourney.
It was going well on all three until I ran into a small problem on one !
KOSZALIN Profit £5.81
SANDMOOR Profit £10.92
LEGNICA Loss £34.20
I have not worked out how to post hands on here yet, but Dohhh called a 4BB bet preflop and I saw a little value in seeing a flop with J9 suited.
Flop was 984 rainbow, and Dohhh checked. With top pair I bet £3 to find out where I was and the preflop raiser folded, Doh raised it to £8.40. I called thinking the str8 draw was well within his range and when the turn was a 9 thought I must be ahead. Another £12.90 went in and the river was a 4 giving me the house. So my last £15.48 hit the pot and he showed 44 for quads !
Now if this hand had been in a tournament I may have just looked at it as a bad beat or one of those things and entered another tourny. But would a top cash player see it as a bad mistake ? The reality is that I was never ahead in the hand at any point and my opponent was betting every street strongly. Criticism welcomed !!!!!
Anyway apart from that disaster I played okay and am still £26.69 in front over the first two days.
Tony
PS ty FIN.... I did have one minor relapse, but apart from that its been quite a long time. I still dont feel I have definitely kicked it though.
To post a hand-- find it in hand history--- put your pointer in the bottom right hand corner of the window the hand is in--- click left, keeping your finger pressed down, move your pointer up to the top left corner--- the whole hand should now be highlighted in blue---- right click and select "copy"--- then go to the thread--- click in "your post" window--- right click and select "paste"--- the hand should now be in the window ready to post--- click where it say's Dohhhhhhh and erase his name-- replace it with "alcodonk" so everyone knows who it is----lol--- gl m8-- floppa whoppa!!!
Obviously i think its profitable seeing the turn and then i get attached to my hand, im sure maybe some cash players can tell me in more detail, but i lose the lot here too. Expessially as on the river only 44 beats us.
Mr Stroud!
Great thread, great stuff.
I have a fairly good idea how you play, & I think you'll make a nice steady income if you concentrate on cash games.
I'm not quite so sure that you should mix cash, & Tourneys much, though, as the two are very different, & require a completely different mindset.
The "Big Boys" tend to take the following line - grind it out on the Cash Tables, nick a few bob regularly, & if they have a good week, treat themselves to a nice Tourney or two, for fun & relaxation. I know hundreds of winning cash-game players. I know a dozen or so winning Tourney players. Largely speaking, one's for money, the other is for fun.
See you in Luton, March 12th. Come up on the Friday evening if you can, it'll be a good Friday Night Tourney.
You were talking about playing for one hour and how that sat.Firstly the advantage of cash over tournys is the fact that you can play for as long or as short a time as you want( provided you are rolled for it if on a bad run).So for this reason you should play for as long as you feel like and not go on too long. So just walk away if you are feeling tired,making bad decisions or just dont like the table.
Secondly with one hour being a relatively short time even 3 tabling, it will take a considerable number of sessions to have played a meaningful number of hands to start to get a pattern of results to base any conclusions on.
I wish you luck with your endeavour and hopefully you will gain a good second string to your bow.
Even if you are a bit of a donk do this and you will profit.
These unknowns paid my mortgage off, just wish I knew who they where to thank them.
I understand exactly what you are saying about the different mindset required for the two disciplines. But I think you know me well enough to realise I will always be a tournament player.
Over the last few years tournaments have given me not only loads of fun and relaxation, but I have been so fortunate in that I have also shown a significant profit. But a lot of that profit was acheived some time ago, and I think its a fact that the standard of play on Sky has gone up a lot. Three years ago I would rarely see a losing week in tournaments, but now the variance is much greater.
So my wish to develop my cash game is to find a way to control that variance. Others have done it. I remember Gliterbabe when he played mainly tournaments and only dabbled in cash. Flashflush and Phil12 are others.
Choosing the level I play is also difficult. To be honest playing at 15/30 will never give me the buzz I need from poker, even if I played 4 tables and trebled my buyin at all of them, there would be no real sense of acheivement.
I have enough in my Sky poker bankroll to play a couple of levels higher ( although some if it is mentally earmarked for Vegas qualification ! ) And that BR is all profit and not my own money so it is tempting to jump a level or two.
But I think I will prove to myself and others that I can consistently win at each level before moving up. And I am going to have to do that while still playing tournaments on a regular basis. Looking forward to £220 biggie tomorrow, and still have to find a way into the Vegas final. I will resist the temptation to open up a few cash tables while I am still running in tournies and stop and have a cup of tea before switching to cash.
I have been to Luton a couple of times this year with varied success ! But I always seem to get there the night after you or Rich or LML have played. I am not booking a hotel for March but at the moment I intend to drive down on the Friday and Saturday. Its about time I took one of these down !
I started playing 2 tables (cant/wont play on miniview yet, not used to it) at 20NL, felt I'd "cracked" that level and wanted to try 30NL, seem to be making a steady profit at this level so far, had a go at 50NL a couple of times and again made a nice profit there just don't think I've played enough 30NL yet to permanently move up to 50NL.
You make some good points about table selection, and playing against people you know, both of which I've not overly considered when I play cash, I tend to just look for tables with a decent average pot....
Keep us posted :-)
Jamie
That was in a book, so not sure how good that information is i think it called it shot taking. It has a point tho imo.
Once you move up stakes you will not get away with limps like these, I would say a limp UTG is followed by a raise in the cut-off or button 90% of the time at 50nl and higher. Open with a raise if you are going to play some weird hands and then they are totally disguised.
Goodluck and see you @ Luton
Great replies by Penguin, Flashy, Dohhh, & Jamie, in particular, but good Posts by everyone, really.
Penguin's reply was awesome - he so knows where he is in his poker life, talking about the buzz he - we - get from Tourneys - & a great one liner by Dohhh - "once you get to to turn you stack off 100% every time".
Flashy put it well, too - by Multi-Tabling Cash, you just don't get into those tricky spots, you are too busy to be bothered with that limp-calling nonsense, & the Regs will slaughter you with betting as soon as they suss you are trying to serial-limp.
The truth is, I don't know how it would be measured, but the variance in Cash Poker is massively less than Tourney Poker, yet few seem to realise that.
Am LOVING this Thread, some terrific Posts in it, the Forum is getting better balance.
By the bye, if you enjoy watching the High-Rollers crash into each other, there were no less than THREE £5 £10 Tables on the go last time I looked, one player is on all three, & he's been busy on the bigger Tables all morning, or since I first looked, at about 8am.
He's a new name on Sky Poker, to me at any rate, but I did some detective work, & I discovered he's got a decent record in Live Tourneys. BIG player.
Great to watch, there was 13k on the table going backwards and forwards. What sort of poker bankroll do these guys have to play this? To me six figures would not even be halfway there.
Just want to say thanks for all of the advice offered on here. Many, many names I respect with useful thought provoking stuff. And I am taking it all in.
Alan,
I think you may be slightly on the wrong tack there, or, more likely, I am!
It's got nothing to do with knowing how you are running viz-a-viz your Bankroll.
The reality is, a competent cash player, playing, say, 6 Tables, will rarely lose on the night, & almost never over a week, or a month. In fact, if he/she is "competent", they will almost NEVER lose over say, 1 month periods, or, say, 5,000 or 10,000 hands.
But the best Tourney player on earth can go months without a single Cash. And then bink a big one, & come out ahead. That's assuming they are still around, & have not gone busto by then. You may have seen James Keys on Sunday's 865 Show, he just shipped $A1,100,000 in the Aussie Millions. Very nice - but he had to sell 60% of himself to be able to play it.
A good, or competent, cash player should never need staking, there is just no point, they are kidding themselves if they are staked. IMO, of course.
A large % of high-level Tourney players HAVE to be staked, as their rolls will not be adequate to handle Tourney variance. And some of them never get out of make-up, because, in Tourney poker, "the long run" is exactly that.
Does that explain it better?
In fact, having watched you play, I think you'd do very well as a cash player.
Bankroll rules? ajs4385 put it superbly on last Saturday's Show. He starts every Monday with "30 Buy-Ins" & the next Monday morning, he withdraws or deposits back to that. Simple.
In Tourneys, you cannot do it that way - the payback can take months.